Mississippi State investigating hacking claim

STARKVILLE — Mississippi State University officials are investigating claims from a Brazilian computer hacker that he has breached the school’s computers.

The claim was first posted Wednesday on a website dedicated to tracking and tracing claims of computer security breaches. The hacker claims to have accessed the usernames, actual names and passwords of 929 students.

MSU spokesman Sid Salter says steps are being taken to protect the university community and that as soon as the school knows the impact of the apparent breach that information will be released.

The data contains admission details, usernames, addresses, emails and encrypted passwords of university’s staff and students, according to the website HackRead.com.